Annalee Newitz

Atheist activist Richard Dawkins has retired from his post at Oxford, but is hard at work on a children's book about the "abusive" nature of both religion and fantasy stories like the Harry Potter series. He told the Telegraph this fall that he's never read Harry Potter, but wants to investigate whether it has a "pernicious" effect on children to read stories that are "anti-scientific."

Dawkins has also just released a video on YouTube that reveals the depth of his hatred for The Mentalist. Below is the first of a six-part interview he did for the documentary The Enemies of Reason, with "illusionist" Derren Brown. Brown reveals the tricks of his trade, including how to sucker information out of marks. He scoffs at the idea that this requires special techniques of observation, ala The Mentalist, and says it's easy to read people without any fancy powers of observation at all.